Educated Indian Women may not find perfect life partners by 2050
Their model assumes that without a change in contemporary norms, the proportion of never-married women aged 45-49 will rise from 0.07 per cent in 2010 to nearly 9 per cent by 2050, with the most significant increase experienced by university-educated women.
The model also shows a rise in the percentage of unmarried men particularly among those with little education. A significant proportion of men in India currently marry women less educated than themselves.
The researchers harmonised existing data on current marriage patterns by age and education and applied these to population projections on the likely age, sex and educational attainment of the Indian population by 2050 to develop scenarios for future marriage patterns.
They analysed data from India's National Family Health Survey (2005-2006) and the India Socio-Economic Survey (1999, 2004) that show 0.6 per cent of all women and 1.2 per cent of all men remain unmarried by the age of 50.
Population projection data from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Vienna Institute of Demography shows that by 2050, there will be 92 men for every 100 women aged 25-29 with university education, compared with 151 men for every 100 women from the same age group educated at university in 2010.
The researchers suggest that if projected marriage patterns were solely focused on the age-sex structure of the future population in India, men rather than women would have a problem finding suitable marriage partners by 2050. However, once education is factored in, the pool of suitable marriage partners for women shrinks if current eligibility criteria apply to future populations.
Lead author Ridhi Kashyap from the Department of Sociology at University of Oxford said that traditional roles and expectations for women and men in India persist despite the significant social and demographic changes witnessed in recent years.
"This research shows that the rigid social structure still experienced in India will need to bend so age and education are not barriers to future unions. "Otherwise, this research suggests the prospects of marriage for many in the future will diminish particularly for highly educated women and men with little education," Kashyap said.
